Work Text:
They were at Alister’s gravestone again.
It was in the Court of Azimuth, Ratchet thought it had been fitting enough, letting Alister come back to the remains of his home after decades of a solitary existence, of exile.
Clank remembered when they had been discussing the location of his burial, they had played with a few ideas, mostly just the Clock and Torren IV, both being shot down rather quickly. Sigmund felt justly uncomfortable with the idea of Azimuth remaining in the place of his final sacrifice. Ratchet had felt Torren IV was too suffocating. Lonely , he would add as an afterthought. So, the Court of Azimuth seemed best. It would be a bookend to his banishment. The closest they could get to ending it, in any sense. It‘d be home.
(Ratchet ignored the nagging feeling saying otherwise. It was hard to believe the General had a home of any kind. A place he could be comfortable and happy in. It hurt knowing he could never get that now.)
They had even managed to get an idea of a proper Lombax burial ceremony from Ms. Apogee, Clank was sure Ratchet was still trying to find ways to repay her, despite her protests.
And so after the very small service (Ratchet was the only one alive who knew the true General, the one he missed so terribly), the young Lombax made it a mission to visit the General’s grave every few months, usually three at most. Almost always only one. Despite the General’s crimes, he had wanted to make sure his sacrifices, his life , went remembered and loved. The man had gone far too long drowning in a miasma of regret and guilt, being held at gunpoint by an exile, being choked by his mistakes.
They all made up the last few decades of his life, they controlled him. His failings lurked like a large shadow on the wall, for all to see. It followed him like a walk of shame, inescapable, perpetual. No matter how far or fast he ran, it only grew larger and closer.
He had shot Ratchet. Killed him.
(Sometimes Clank could not help but abashedly question the validity of his father’s humor, of the universe’s.)
(And sometimes Clank thought about continuing the cruel joke, but as he saw the care and grieving Ratchet put himself through, he could not. Ratchet did not need to know. Not in this state. Clank would let Azimuth get away with his most heinous crime, for Ratchet’s sake. For Ratchet's.)
And as Clank saw Ratchet replace the old, wilting flowers, picking up them up in a manner that made them scream and crumble, with the warm and loving new ones (ones, that Clank had helped pick, because this was important to Ratchet, and Ratchet would always be important to him, no matter the objective), he could not help but feel livid.
It was a rare emotion, though more common than it had once been.
More common than the diminutive robot was comfortable mentioning, anyway.
They always came here, took a trip to the nuked remains of Fastoon, helped keep the burial fresh, and then Clank would watch his closest friend ( brother , Clank reminded himself. They were family, even if they stumbled and tripped, they were family, always would be) whimper and spill the quiet apologies and what-ifs to his killer, only able to offer a comforting hand and act as a metal teddy bear.
It always resulted in a feeling Clank wished he would never be acquainted with again.
Trip after trip, however, it burned itself into his circuitry, a resentment towards the man who never loved Ratchet enough. A man who cursed that truth upon his victim in tandem with bright bolts of electricity that sent Clank into a panic whenever they flew too close.
He would always go on these trips, though. Ratchet always offered an out, always would, he suspected, but there was no way, in the name of everything good in this omniverse, that Clank would leave his friend in his time of need.
Repercussions would light themselves and everything else on fire, Clank would not make that mistake again.
Azimuth broke his promise of a family, Clank thought coldly within Ratchet’s shaking arms, he would not.